National Advance Care Planning Week: 16 to 22 March 2026
This National Advance Care Planning Week, Advance Care Planning Australia encourages the patients you care for to make informed decisions about their future healthcare.
Advance care planning (ACP) is a voluntary process for patients to discuss and document their future healthcare preferences that will help guide healthcare providers and carers. This helps support healthcare providers if a patient loses the capacity to make decisions. ACP may reduce non-beneficial as well as unwanted treatments and interventions.
ACP often relates to the care patients may wish to receive at the end of their lives.
Advance Care Planning Australia is an Australian Government initiative administered by Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative at Metro South Health.
What do health professionals need to know about ACP?
All health and aged care professionals can play a role in advance care planning.
Health professionals are obliged to review and consider advance care planning documents. Different states and territories in Australia have different laws regarding advance care planning. There are also common law decisions in advance care planning. See advancecareplanning.org.au for information.
Free advance care planning clinics for your patients
Patients in the Brisbane South PHN region can access free advance care planning (ACP) clinics hosted by the Metro South Health ACP Service team.
Clinical Nurse Consultants (CNCs) at the clinics are available to help guide ACP conversations with patients.
The clinics can help your patients with Queensland ACP documents including:
Enduring Power of Attorney
Advance Health Directive
Statement of Choices.
The clinics are held in Community Health Centres in Beenleigh, Browns Plains, Eight Mile Plains, Inala, Woolloongabba, and Wynnum-Manly.
Patients may complete whichever ACP document(s) they consider meet their needs. ACP documents cannot be used to make requests for Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD).
On-demand report for palliative care now live in Primary Sense
Primary Sense provides general practitioners (GPs) an on-demand report identifying patients who may benefit from palliative and end-of-life care.
This report helps GPs and your primary care team to support appropriate advance care planning and connect patients to relevant palliative services. It is available through the 'Reports' function in Primary Sense.
More helpful ACP resources for health professionals
The ‘My Care, My Choices’ website is the Queensland Government’s online portal promoting the important processes of advance care planning and providing information and resources to health professionals and the community.
Visit Brisbane South HealthPathways for Advance Care Planning assessment and management advice.
Advance Care Planning Australia has resources to help guide your ACP conversation with patients, as well as ACP resources in 19 other languages.